As the core area in southern Xinjiang,local residents in the Tarim River Basin will affect its environment evolution. Taking the Tarim River Basin as an example, we investigated payment behavior of 1962 residents using the conditional value method to analyze ecological attitudes, ecological environmental externalities and quasi-public goods. We found that 60.3% of river basin residents in the sample area think the ecological environment has been improved, and 67.3% of residents believe that protective forest can conserve soil, conserve water, regulate climate and increase biodiversity. The cognitive degree of ecosystem service had the greatest impact on residents' willingness to pay. Differences in family endowment, cognition of environmental value and psychological perception of climate change, cause the heterogeneity factors of residents' willingness to pay. Downstream residents' willingness to pay is an average 29.99% higher than that of upstream residents. Income level does not affect residents' objective and rational cognition of ecological value. Residents with zero willingness were 11.9%, psychological 'free rider' and 'lack trust in government to governance environment' account for 61.9%. River downstream residents act as the most direct beneficiaries of environment improvement, the proportion of zero willingness to ecological environment protection is only 5.3%. Considering the heterogeneity of residents, local economic and social conditions, environmental evolution trends and resource allocation play an important role in improving the validity and reliability of CVM theory when assessing environmental value.